Austrian Economics Overview

Rothbard's approach to money prices is not as a barter exchange system. Instead, he made money prices the common denominator for all exchange ratios. You can now engage in economic calculation.

The mental constructs of the evenly rotating economy and of specific factors of production are discussed. Distinguishing between interest and profits and a construct of slow change are revealed through the ERE as Rothbard considers the final state of rest.The ERE construct is simply a useful, unrealizable, mental tool.

Recorded at Mises University 2008.

This middle chapter on production theory goes into detail on factor pricing and discounted marginal value product. The way Rothbard developed every aspect of production theory is unique. As the economy becomes more specialized and complex, the importance of this market process becomes greater.

Recorded at Mises University 2008.

Here Rothbard deals with the pure rate of interest, as determined by time preference. It's a ratio of prices between present and future goods. The interest rate is equal to the rate of price spread in the various stages of production. It pervades all time markets.

Direct exchange was limited. The pattern of indirect exchange led to the common medium of exchange: money. Maximization of psychic income always leads the seller of a good to seek the highest money price for it, and the buyer of a good to seek the lowest money price.

Leading Austrian Economists discuss Henry Hazlitt's classic book Economics in One Lesson. Interview 1 of 12.

Recorded at Mises University 2008.

Human action is defined simply as purposeful behavior. Men act by virtue of their being human. Action can be undertaken only by individual actors. Leisure is a good. Mises derives economic law from this axiom that the study of man is the concept of action.